Stryker's Arc

Chapter 7 of 16

Inside, the bar smelled like algae and old wood. Bottles lined the shelves, labels faded to nothing. Croaker moved behind the counter, his webbed hands steady as he pulled down a jar filled with something that looked like preserved roots. He set it between them without explanation. Then he reached beneath the counter and brought up a newspaper with bright green pages. The headlines screamed about the creature in bold type, accompanied by sketches that showed a serpent longer than three boats. Croaker spread the paper flat, tapping one clawed finger on a photograph of a massive skeleton lying in a warehouse. "Pulled it from the deep marsh myself," he said. "Cost me everything the elders promised my family to keep quiet." He looked at Stryker with eyes that had seen too much. "You want the Scaled Gem? I can tell you exactly where it sits. But you'll need me to get there alive, and my price isn't gold." Stryker stared at the skeleton in the photograph, her grandmother's stories suddenly real and terrifying. "What do you want?" Croaker smiled, showing teeth worn down to nubs. "When you find that gem, you bring it back here. Let the world see it. Prove I wasn't crazy for breaking that silence." He pulled out a hand-drawn map from under the newspaper, routes marked in faded ink. "You get your proof. I get mine. We both get what we've been chasing." Stryker picked up the map, feeling the weight of another blood oath forming. Croaker had what she needed, but taking it meant promising to return with the one thing she'd spent half her life searching for. She looked at the skeleton again, at the evidence Croaker had already sacrificed everything to reveal. "If I find it," she said slowly, "you'll have your proof." Croaker nodded and pushed the map across the counter. "Then we have a deal." He reached below the counter one more time and brought up a fishing rod that gleamed like captured sunlight. Gold from end to end, ornate and impossible. "This belonged to the last person who made it to the gem's chamber," Croaker said. "Found it floating near the tail you saw at the gate. They never came back." He set it on the bar between them. "Take it with you. If you can bring back the gem and this rod together, nobody will doubt either of us again." Stryker reached for the rod, feeling its weight settle in her hands like a promise and a warning. She'd wanted proof her grandmother's stories were real. Now she had a guide who knew where the gem sat, a map showing the way, and evidence that someone had already reached it and died. Croaker was offering her everything she'd searched for, but the price was carrying it all back through whatever killed its last owner. She looked at the old frog, at his worn teeth and desperate eyes, and understood they were both trapped by the same need to be believed. "I'll bring them both back," she said, and knew she'd just bound herself to a second oath that might cost more than the first. Croaker's smile widened. The deal was sealed, and the path to the Scaled Gem was finally open.